Celtic Scotland : a history of ancient Alban / by William F. Skene.

  • William Forbes Skene
Date:
1886-1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Celtic Scotland : a history of ancient Alban / by William F. Skene. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/546
    sound judgment, extensive research, and critical acumen, which are requisite to extricate the true history of the early church from the fictitious and controversial matter with which it has been encumbered. The first to bring these qualities to bear upon the subject was undoubtedly the late Dr. Joseph Robertson, in a very remarkable essay which appeared in the Quarterly Review in 1849, under the title of ‘ Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals ’ (vol. lxxxv. p. 103); and this was followed by a valuable essay ‘ On the Scholastic Offices in the Scottish Church in the twelfth and thirteenth Centuries/ printed in 1852 in the Miscellany of the Spalding Club (vol. v. p. 56). But, in 1857, there appeared by far the most important work bearing upon the history of the early Scottish Church. This was the edition of Adamnai/s Life of St. Columba, by the Rev. Dr. Reeves, now Dean of Armagh, printed for the Irish Archaeological Society and the Bannatyne Club. This work is a perfect model of an exhaustive treatment of its subject, and exercised at once an influence upon the study of Scottish church history, the importance of which cannot be over-estimated. It was followed, in 1864, by a work of the same author on The Culdees of the British Islands as they appear in History, in which he has brought together almost all the evidence we possess with regard to their history. In the same year the late Bishop of Brechin commenced his useful labours in this department of history by publishing the